Do you want to know what's in your food?

Wednesday

Apr 3, 2013 at 12:01 AM

A fight is brewing across America's fields of waving grains, and it isn't pretty. Already proponents and opponents of labeling food made with genetically modified organisms, known as GMOs, are name calling, finger pointing and angrily standing their ground.

BRENDA MARKS FULLER

A fight is brewing across America's fields of waving grains, and it isn't pretty.

Already proponents and opponents of labeling food made with genetically modified organisms, known as GMOs, are name calling, finger pointing and angrily standing their ground.

On one side, huge agricultural businesses stress that GMO foods have not been proven unsafe for consumers.

On the other side, nonprofits such as the Non-GMO Project, and some people who buy and produce natural and organic foods, want laws protecting their right to know what is on their grocery store shelves and what they're eating.

On March 12, Sen. Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery/Delaware) introduced Senate Bill 653 that, if it passes, would make labeling food containing GMOs required in Pennsylvania. Other states including Vermont and Connecticut are proposing similar bills. One such bill in California, Proposition 37, was voted down.

Leach stressed that whether consumers think GMOs are good or bad, or if they're indifferent to the issue, they have no way of knowing if a food has been genetically modified unless a producer volunteers to label it that way, he said.

Silk soy milk is voluntarily labeled as a non-GMO food with a little butterfly label in the carton's lower left corner. Products grown with GMOs include soybeans, corn, canola, sugar beets (used in the making of sugar), most of the papayas grown in Hawaii, alfalfa (used in animal feed), cotton (to make cottonseed oil for peanut butter) and some summer squashes, among others.

"Products now contain calorie and nutrition labeling. My bill simply requires that (GMOs) be labeled. There is no (mandated) warning. Labels should be factually accurate with information for consumers who may be against (GMOs)," Leach said. "How do you deny people factual and accurate information? It just boggles my mind."

Talk like that rankles Karen Batra, director of communications for BIO, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, based in Washington, D.C. The trade group represents about 1,100 members and covers products such as biofuels and bio plastics, to food and agriculture.

"We are opposed to any policies around (GMO) food labeling. It's confusing to consumers," she said. "We are strong supporters of natural and non-GMO voluntary labels. Those choices exist in the marketplace today. It's important to remember the way they're being pushed. They want this label, that this product is a GMO, to be a warning label mandated by law. It goes against food labeling. Labels can't be false and misleading."

People who want GMO food labeled, including Falko Schilling, consumer protection advocate at Vermont Public Interest Research Group, point out that food that has been altered genetically may cause allergies, repels insects that won't even eat it, and that GMO plants can cross-pollinate with organic crops, reducing genetic varieties and contaminating organic harvests. Proponents of mandatory labeling also stress that many countries, including the European Union and Japan, already stipulate that GMO food must be labeled.

Recently Whole Foods Market Inc. announced that all GMO foods sold in the chain's stores must be GMO labeled by 2018. Dan Rothman, Whole Foods' Northeast metro chef and chairman of the Pocono Mountain chapter of Slow Food USA, wants GMO food labeling.

"It's disheartening how far behind we are as a world power in labeling our food and being up front with (consumers), but we are making headway," he said. "In my opinion, there is a revolving door between food conglomerates and the people who are supposed to be protecting us."

A recent story on huffingtonpost.com stressed that a federal GMO labeling law being pushed by big business groups could override local efforts on the state level. Called preemption, a federal law could be more lax, result in a "compromised version" and be "industry's way of ensuring uniformity and stopping grassroots efforts," huffingtonpost.com reported.

According to a 2004 report by the National Academy of Sciences, "Technological advances "» have exceeded our ability to interpret the consequences to human health of changes in food composition. Although compositional changes can be detected readily in food, and the power of profiling techniques is rapidly increasing our ability to identify compositional differences between GE food products and their conventional counterparts, methods for determining the biological relevance of these changes and predicting unintended adverse health effects are understudied."

The report, titled "Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods: Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Effects," encourages that "further advances in analytical technologies and their interpretation are needed to address these limitations."

Batra, of BIO, stressed that the report concludes that "to date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population."

According to Monsanto's website, "Since farmers first began growing biotech crops in 1994, people around the world have eaten trillions of meals and snacks containing ingredients from genetically modified crops with no evidence of harm to humans or animals." Monsanto, long known as a chemical company, is now an agricultural company that sells genetically modified and patented seeds to farmers. Farmers have to buy GMO seeds each year for planting because the seeds are patented, according to treehugger.com. "The seed distributors don't want to go back to selling non-GMO. They want to sell seed every year; it's more profitable," the site reported.

Jake Roth, produce and bulk foods purchaser at Earthlight Natural Foods in Stroudsburg, who heads up the store's non-GMO verified products, said if his store finds a product on its shelves with GMOs, it stops selling it immediately.

"There has not been enough research on the effect of GMOs on the human body: digestion, health issues, cancer, diabetes, ulcers, feed for animals. Ireland banned them entirely. Hungary did, too. If they found GMO crops in their fields, they burned them," he said. "It's not too late for this bill. But the tough thing when you submit bills is to get them to pass. It would be fantastic to consumers."

So why bother to use GMO seeds to produce America's food supply?

According to the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance website, GMO crops "increase yields, reduce crop damage from weeds, diseases and insects, or bad weather conditions, improve water quality, reduce costs and labor intensity for farmers." The site also indicates that GMO foods "can potentially improve nutritional value or other health benefits (seeds in development)."

And a Massachusetts company, AquaBounty, is pushing to have its genetically modified AquaAdvantage salmon approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for sale. According to a Reuters' story of March 20, "Whole Foods Market Inc., Trader Joe's and other food retailers representing more than 2,000 U.S. stores have vowed not to sell genetically engineered seafood if it is approved in the United States."

As far as the proposed Pennsylvania bill, Leach said he hopes it will be assigned to a committee and that hearings will be held where the agricultural industry can come in and explain why they don't want GMO food labeling.

"I got an email that basically said that if you tell people stuff (like this), they're not going to be able to interpret it," Leach said, declining to say who wrote that email.

"They say there's no context, no scientific evidence, no proof," Leach said. "It's hard to tell who has been harmed. Cancer and reproductive issues — those things can take decades to manifest themselves. Keep in mind doctors used to recommend smoking. Maybe 20 years from now it will all turn out fine. Until things are clear, I just don't want to put it in my body."